Melbourne (April 13-16)

/* aside: Paul's on my case to get up to speed on the blog so that I can actually write stuff that's happening now. Since I'm working off this cold, and basically just growing my I'm too sick to shave beard, I'll put the next two posts up this weekend and finish off the Australian leg of my trip */

My next destination after Sydney was to meet up with Christine in Melbourne. At the airport I finally met Bryce, who was like Polkaroo for the longest time when in Canada; I never seemed to meet him. I was warmly invited to crash at his family's place, and it was extremely welcome as everything else in Melbourne was freezing cold. I was really caught off guard. I knew it was winter, and I knew it could get cold, but the forecast had said like 18-20 degrees. But that's the high. The low is very low, but not quite as low as I thought. Also most of the houses aren't well insulated since most of the time it's not needed. It was the change from 35 degrees & 90% humidity to 10 & 10 that I just wasn't ready for.

That night on the way to his house, we stopped in downtown Melbourne to see the Wednesday nightlife. Predictably, it was like a Wednesday night in Mississauga. But we did stumble across the filming of Ghost Rider (with Nic Cage?? odd casting choice). They were setting up the shot for a long time, and later I found out it's a scene where GR drives into the river. Or something. Well, someone takes a dunk.




Along the waterfront there are these pillars that shoot fire. In the evenings, usually weekends, on the hour for several hours there is this impromptu show. I'm not quite sure why they'd do it on a lonely Wednesday evening. Bryce said they were ridiculously expensive to do, but hey, it did provide me with some cool shots I guess. Maybe they were using them in the Ghost Rider shoot.




Hey Money, this pic is for you; Look right below the arrow.




I wasn't quite clear on the story, Christine might clarify it; but the original Aboriginal name that was thrown around for Melbourne was Batman. Obviously that didn't stick, but there is Batman Ave.




Although I'm not really a blood-thirsty carnivore, I do like trying different, non-endangered animals. And though my dad told Aarani not to let me have any, I wasn't quite clear on why. So I ate first, I'll ask questions later. Bryce and I had Kangaroo fillets. Which the Aussies insist on pronouncing FILL-IT. It was gamey of course, but I don't really know how to describe it better than that. Its supposed to be one of the leanest, healthiest red meats. And the kangaroo population is not kept in check since there are no local predators. So they're trying to boost consumption since they're culling herds anyway, but it doesn't seem to be that popular. For example, I'm shocked that Mackers McOz burger is just a regular beef burger.




We headed up into the rainforest an hour out of Melbourne. There were ferns and trees that were thousands of years old, and because of the geographic isolation, virtually unchanged from their ancestors hundreds of million years ago. The forest was teeming with bird life, but I think my biggest pet peeve (and it's through no fault of Australia's I guess) is that there aren't more big creatures. Yes there are kangaroos (not in the rainforest), but not much else that compares size-wise. Of course some might enjoy the fact that there isn't the possibility of being eaten at every turn, but that's the one thing I liked about India (and why Africa is on my short list of places to visit).

As it stands, it was still extremely beautiful landscape, and we had a bbq in the national park complete with TimTams, which was fun. I do like that even though it's getting into winter, you can still have bbqs outside. (I realise my roommates will complain since we did have winter bbqs, but it's not nearly as fun)




Later that evening we headed for a rugby game. I would've liked to see an Aussie Rules Football game, but I completely forgot about it beforehand and when I got into the various cities, there was never a game on. It was cool being at a rugby game where the audience was really into it. There was an angry woman beside us who was cheering against the hometown Melbourne Storm. I'm not quite sure why she was so angry since her precious Eels were beating the Storm mercilessly. There was also an angry Storms' fan on the other side of us, who's rage was really undirected. He was mad at everything, but couldn't verbalize it. Usually it was just a string of expletives. Or just one or two choice ones.




As the game neared its end, there was about a dozen people, middle-aged and beyond, who stood on the track in between the field, and the irate mob of fans. It was a pre-emptive strike in case the fans rushed the field. But seeing this lady in "attack" position was too much. I think the threat of being leveled by a rugby player is deterrence enough, I'm not quite sure how she'd help the situation.




Cairns is up next.

about Australia, from Germany